Outdoor Photography How To

Photography, like most artistic endeavors, is all about experimentation and practice. Put another way, the best photographers have the courage to try new things, make mistakes, and learn how to avoid them in the future.

Outdoor photography can be challenging for the best of us, with ever changing light, broad dynamic range, and a variety interesting objects at different portions of the scene. In the tutorial below one of our favorite travel and nature photographers discusses common shooting errors and explains how to avoid them.

Given a choice, most outdoor photographers prefer to shoot at the beginning or end of the day. At Blue Hour, just before sunrise, the landscape is bathed in soft, cool tones, while at Golden Hour, just after sunset, beautiful warm tones prevail.

You might say that images from distant, exotic locations are the stock and trade of a professional travel photographer, and certainly in my case you’d be mostly right. Those images pay off commercially and artistically, and when I can make them in places I’ve never before visited, they provide the added satisfaction of exploration and discovery.

Travel and nature photographer John Shaw lives his dream, traveling the world with his camera, without deadlines or obligations. His images go toward stock sales worldwide, in addition to being used in his many books. While he doesn’t shoot on assignment, magazine editors familiar with Shaw’s work will come to him when needed, or he’ll occasionally pitch story ideas to them when planning a trip.

One of the many joys of photography is travelling to unfamiliar locations and capturing images of unique scenes you can’t find at home. But what if you arrive at a location amidst poor weather conditions, or at the wrong time of day with nothing but “bad light”? 

A common mistake by outdoor photographers when shooting on the street or in the field is to begin popping off photos upon arriving at a destination for fear of losing a fleeting moment or great light. The problem with this common approach is that it often results in common images.